Principal Investigator(s):
Andrew Golub, National Development and Research Institutes, Inc.;
Henry H. Brownstein, National Opinion Research Center;
Eloise Dunlap, National Development and Research Institutes, Inc.

Summary

This study examined trends in the use of five widely abused drugs among arrestees at 10 geographically diverse locations from 2000 to 2010: Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Denver, Indianapolis, Manhattan, Minneapolis, Portland Oregon, Sacramento, and Washington DC. The data came from the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring Program reintroduced in 2007 (ADAM II) and its predecessor the ADAM program. ADAM data included urinalysis results that provided an objective measure of recent drug use, provided location specific estimates over time, and provided sample weights that yielded unbiased estimates for each location. The ADAM data were analyzed according to a drug epidemics framework, which has been previously employed to understand the decline of the crack epidemic, the growth of marijuana use in the 1990s, and the persistence of heroin use. Similar to other diffusion of innovation processes, drug epidemics tend to follow a natural course passing through four distinct phases: incubation, expansion, plateau, and decline. The study also searched for changes in drug markets over the course of a drug epidemic.

The data from the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) Program/Drug Use Forecasting (DUF) Series are restricted from general dissemination. The ADAM collection may not be used for any purpose other than statistical reporting and analysis. Use of the ADAM data to learn the identity of any person or establishment is prohibited. To protect respondent privacy, these data are restricted from general dissemination. To obtain these files, researchers must agree to the terms and conditions of a Restricted Data Use Agreement in accordance with existing ICPSR servicing policies.

Study Purpose

The purpose of this study was to examine the local nature of drug epidemics and drug markets. Specifically, the study had two objectives:

Describe the natural course of the drug problems since 2000 through to the expected near-term future in the 10 jurisdictions served by ADAM II.

Evaluate over time the relationships between the changing organization and operation of local drug markets and the direction and course of local drug epidemics, particularly with regard to the possible impact of law enforcement initiatives.

Study Design

This study analyzed drug epidemics and analyzed changes in drug markets over time using the 37,933 adult male arrestees age 18 and above who provided urine samples from the 10 locations participating in ADAM II. The ADAM program approached a representative sample of arrestees awaiting booking within 48 hours of their arrest at each participating location and asked them to complete a 20-25 minute survey and provide a urine sample. They were offered a small incentive for participation. The ADAM program performed urine tests to obtain an objective measure of recent drug use not subject to respondents' lack of full and accurate disclosure.

The project obtained the ADAM 2000-2003 and the ADAM II 2007-2010 data from the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD). Because of the gap between the ADAM and ADAM II programs, there are no data available for three years, 2004-2006. The 2010 data did not become available until November 2011, after all of the analyses had been completed. The study applied for and obtained an extension to this study in order to update analyses. All analyses of the drug epidemics were redone in order to cover 2000-2010. The analyses of drug markets where not revised; they cover 2000-2009.

The study evaluated trends in marijuana, crack, heroin, and methamphetamine at each of the ten ADAM II locations using a drug epidemics framework. The analyses of heroin and methamphetamine trends are limited to the ADAM sites that have had higher levels of use of these drugs. The analysis also examined the use of cocaine powder in contrast to crack cocaine at the five locations most affected by powder cocaine use.

The following three approaches were used to analyze ADAM drug market variables:

Micro-data: Reliability and factor analysis of how market structure variables tend to be associated at the level of the individuals' experience.

Site-Year Aggregated data: Reliability and factor analysis of the systematic variation in drug market variables over time and across locations.

Trend analysis: Visual inspection of the variation in each drug market variable at each site over time comparing the trend to the course of prevailing drug epidemics.

Original Release Date

Version Date

Weight

The ADAM program uses censuses and propensity scoring to develop sample weights. Sample weights for each location for each year were renormalized so that the sum of all weights equaled the number of cases. This assured that the multi-year analysis would give the appropriate weight to data collected in any given year proportional to the number of cases collected. These weights were used in all statistical calculations to provide unbiased estimates for the target population of adult male arrestees at each location.

Notes

The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.

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